


Making Dick Clark Proud

by deathsteel



Series: One-Shots, Tumblr Prompts, and Unrelated Crap [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Related, Fix-It, Give A Read Challenge, M/M, New Year's Eve, One Shot, One Year Later, Or Is It?, Prompt Fill, Tumblr Prompt, endverse!2014, rated for language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-03
Updated: 2014-01-03
Packaged: 2018-01-07 06:17:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1116499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathsteel/pseuds/deathsteel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean doesn't do resolutions, luckily for him some New Year's Eve rituals are more rewarding than others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Making Dick Clark Proud

**Author's Note:**

> Give A Read Challenge Prompt Week #2: New Years!
> 
> (taken from mishadmitrikrushnicollins via tumblr)

Dean didn't make New Year's resolutions, he never had. Mostly because resolutions tended to revolve around denying yourself things that you liked.

 _I resolve to stop smoking,_ which he didn't do anyway. Well, once in high school because he was trying to impress a girl, but it had been gross and painful and he had never touched one ever again.

 _I resolve to cut back on my drinking;_ yea, like that was going to happen.

 _I resolve to lose weight, eat better, go vegan._ None of those things were going to happen even though sometimes if felt like old age and pie were plotting behind his back to make him go soft around the middle, but that wasn't going to make Dean stop eating burgers and bacon and banana cream pie. No way. He was still in better shape them most guys his age anyway, so that made all those clichéd resolutions about going to the gym not something he was interested in either.

No, if he were going to make a resolution about anything it would definitely be something along the lines of _I resolve to travel more_ or _I resolve to not get thrown up against walls anymore unless it's in a good way._ Dean thought those were fairly realistic resolutions, especially after the year he had had just trying to make it to the end of 2014.

He had spent the first half of it chasing down Gadreel, fucker was slick. Dean and Cas had literally driven all over the country at least twice looking for the angel only to find out he was working with Metatron, the same heavenly baddie who had avoided everyone and their dog's radar for literally millennia. No wonder it took six months to fucking find him and that was only on accident because the hotel that they were crashing at had a pool and who knew angels liked to swim? Dean had walked out of their room looking for Cas, only to find the other man having a very tense standoff with that body snatching prick, Gadreel, both of them clad in swim trunks and not much else.

Well, except for that one stripe of zinc-oxide sunscreen across Cas's nose that the other man had insisted was more than enough since if he got sunburned he could just heal himself. He had said it was so he could get the complete human experience- something that he was using as an excuse now to do a lot of things since he had gotten a taste of what it was like to be human while he was graceless. Tastes that extended to include chocolate, trashy romance novels, and oolong tea. Dean didn't really get the whole thing, but there was always chocolate around the bunker now so he didn't complain when he had to fight Cas for coffee mugs in the morning. Sam had told him to pick his battles.

It took another month to convince Gaddy that he and Cas were actually the good guys and that Metatron was just using the angel for his own gain, but they did it and they managed to get Sam back well and proper soon after finding their new ally another vessel. Which Sam had promptly punched for trying to kill Kevin, Dean had just been lucky that Crowley was still around and that that unlikely source of help had been actually able to save his young friend. They owed that Scottish asshole big, but for now the demon seemed content to loiter around the bunker, singing a strange mish-mash of Sir Mix-a-lot and Blur under his breath while he perused through the old Men of Letters archives with Sam and Kevin anytime they had research to do.

The fall was spent shutting Bart and Metamotormouth down, what was it with angels and their fucking daddy/God complexes? Dean had wanted to ask Cas, but that whole ordeal was still a sore spot between the two of them. They didn't talk about why the angel hadn't come to him asking for his help instead of Crowley's, but just once when he had been feeling particularly charitable the demon had sat Dean down and told him that it was because Cas was terrified of disappointing Dean, even more so than he was of disappointing his absent creator of the universe father.

He understood, because he could remember the looks that his dad had given him when he hadn't shot a ghoul fast enough or recited an exorcism without stuttering over the Latin when he had just been a teenager who wanted to focus on girls instead of ghosts. Dean hoped he didn't give Cas those kind of looks, but he must have and that thought alone was enough to get him to start thinking about changing how he treated the other man. Though if he were honest with himself, he had been thinking about changing how he treated Cas for quite a while.

Things were quiet through October, but fucking Abaddon had a flair for the dramatic which after knowing Crowley for as long as they had really shouldn't have come as a surprise and she ambushed him while Dean was out shopping for a turkey big enough to feed three grown men, a demon, and two angels. Thanksgiving was ruined by the fucking knightress of hell briefly possessing Dean after she had made good on her promise and peeled his anti-possession tattoo off of his chest with just her fingernails. Luckily she only had his body for about a day and while Dean could remember every second she had spent taunting him inside his own head about his mom and Lisa and all of the confusing, conflicted feelings that he had ranging around inside his mind, she didn't actually do anything that got his face plastered all over the news...again.

They had had a normal Christmas or normal enough for them, especially since Charlie and Dorothy showed up unannounced thinking that it was still May and Sam's birthday. His brother had declared the Ozian texts that the two women had brought him to be the best presents he had gotten in his whole life, gee thanks bro. But Kevin had really appreciated the second hand Wii that Dean had gotten the younger man; he and Charlie had played Animal Crossing for the next six hours while Dorothy had watched spellbound by the unfamiliar technology.

Crowley got Cas and Gaddy sweaters, which were ugly as sin and the demon claimed that he had made them himself. Dean had just assumed that the grumpy Scotsman was plotting something much more sinister with those knitting needles than the two sweaters and pair of misshapen house slippers that came out of Crowley's bedroom on Christmas day. Sam made a point to wear the house slippers that didn't really fit just to appease the demon, but Dean was supremely grateful that Crowley had just made him pot holders since he was always complaining about burning himself in the kitchen when he cooked.

Dean hadn't known what to get Cas, he was still reeling over everything that he had learned about himself while Abaddon had been knocking around in his noggin and nothing he saw seemed right. It was all either too much, too desperate seeming or not enough, not personal like it needed to be so that maybe Cas would get the fucking hint and Dean wouldn't have to say it. And he wasn't crafty, anything that he might have tried to knit would've made Crowley's mediocre attempts look professional and Kevin apparently painted when he was trying to de-stress from translating the angel tablet because everyone got a small painted canvas from the younger man; Dean's had Baby on it.

So instead of completely confusing the other man by buying him some impersonal gift from the mall, Dean had just decided to hang mistletoe everywhere as Cas's present. But after the angel saw Charlie and Dorothy sharing a kiss underneath the yuletide garland and Crowley had drily explained to both of the confused angels exactly why they were doing so, Cas had made a point to keep his eyes trained on the ceiling for the rest of the day so that he wouldn't get caught under it by anyone. That had just made Dean feel foolish, especially when he saw how enthusiastic Gaddy was about it when Crowley had tugged the angel into a kiss that Bobby probably would've given up his legs for all over again and the face that Cas had made before disappearing off to his bedroom to turn in early even though he didn't need to sleep anymore.

By New Years Eve he was ready to just get to the end of 2014; even though the world hadn't ended and Sam wasn't walking around with Lucifer piggybacking in his brain and Cas wasn't a pharmaceutical addled hippie, it had still all in all fucking sucked. So, no, he wasn't making a fucking resolution because people always gave up on them two weeks into the new year anyway and he thought they were pretty damn pointless. He was just going to sit on the couch in his robe and watch the fucking ball drop on T.V. and then go to bed like the grumpy old man that he was.

Going to the bar with everyone else hadn't even seemed appealing, partially because the eagerness that Kevin had to try out his new fake ID that Charlie had minted for him on Sam's laptop before skipping back off into the slightly green sunset of Oz with Dorothy was just exhausting by itself, but mostly because he had no desire to see Cas get hit on or hook up with some drunk chick who didn't know the first thing about the angel. Meaningless sex had lost all of its allure after getting magiced into a dungeon the last time that it had happened and while Dean had no desire to try to start a family with someone after the whole Lisa/Ben fiasco, it didn't mean that he wanted to be alone for the rest of his short, violent, unpredictable life either.

But here he was, sipping on only his second beer of the night with a rockin' New Year's Eve show that still belonged to Dick Clark and always would all alone in the darkened dungeon turned makeshift den now that Crowley was allowed to walk around as long as he had good behavior. Dean could admit that the whole thing was more than slightly depressing, but he had never missed a countdown yet and his poor spirits weren't going to keep him from missing one now, even though he didn't have anyone to kiss since the one person he wanted to was probably going to be locking lips with someone else.

The musical performances this year were crap, but he had thought the same about everything last year too. Except for Blondie, he liked Blondie. Cas had liked it too and had looked up enough of her music to be able to hum 'One Way or Another' to himself in the car when they had been out looking for Gadreel what felt like over a lifetime ago. Dean almost missed those days when it had been just him and Cas, the worry for Sam had always been there, but sometimes, when Cas got pop culture stuff wrong or used air quotes for things that didn't need them he had been able to push the concern back and enjoy the other man's company.

It was nice to have something sort of like a family again though, even if half of them were hunters and the other half were impossible, paranormal beings Dean didn't want to lose it. What he had done at Christmas was stupid, risky, and he wasn't likely to try it again now that he had realized that, so he took another drink of his beer instead and grimaced anytime Ryan Seacrest got hit on by a guest, poor guy.

The knocking on the doorframe was what startled him out of his brooding at about five minutes to midnight, causing Dean to look up to see Cas peeking around the door at him with a shy smile on his face. The other man was in his pajamas already, a pair of Green Lantern pajama bottoms and that horrible Christmas sweater that Crowley had made with grey yarn that Dean thought made Cas's eyes pop six different ways from Sunday. He couldn't fucking knit worth a damn, but the demon sure knew which colors worked best on someone, especially since Gaddy's was a gold color that brought out the lighter strands in his new vessel's shockingly ginger hair.

"Mind if I join you?" the angel asked nervously, tugging on the bottom hem of his sweater that was just a little too short for him. "I do not want to miss the ball dropping; it is my second year in a row to get to see it."

"I know," Dean said, scooting over quickly to make room for Castiel on the couch and patting the recently vacated space next to him. "Come on, you're just in time. I thought you had gone out with the rest of the guys for the night or I would've called you when that singer you liked was on."

"The one that looks like a pretty lizard?" Castiel asked sounding slightly disappointed as he moved over to plop down on the couch next to Dean, mimicking the hunter's position by putting his feet up on the short coffee table in front of them. "That is a shame, I would have liked to have seen her."

"Well, if I had know you were here I would've ordered a pizza or something, made a night out of it." Dean complained, annoyed with the other man's tendency to zone out while he was meditating, another 'human experience' that he was hell-bent on having now that things had quieted down. "What have you been up to this whole time?"

"Researching this ritual," the angel answered, tilting his head at the screen and squinting in confusion when the title of the show flashed across the screen before it cut to commercial, the countdown was coming up next. "The host's name is Ryan Seacrest correct? I do not understand why this is called 'Dick Clark's New Years Eve', is all of this just a big party that he throws to celebrate the exchanging of one calendar for another?"

"No," he scoffed, draping his arm across the back of the couch as he turned towards the angel so he could look at him better.

The flickering light from the television was playing across Cas's cheekbones and the sharp lines of his jaw and nose in a way that was so different from how it would look on the soft features of a woman, better because he knew underneath the skin of Jimmy Novak there was a selfless, giving, perfect being who had saved him from hell and Purgatory and himself.

Dean cleared his throat when Castiel's expression just became even more confused and exasperated, rolling his eyes like it annoyed him that he had to explain stuff to the other man all the time even though really he relished any opportunity he got to talk to Cas alone, just the two of them. Maybe one day he would get up the courage to say something about how he felt, hell maybe it would the only resolution that he ever made, next year. But it wasn't going to be today and it was part of the reason he wasn't giving up drinking, he was going to have to be drunk for that conversation.

"Dick Clark used to host this, every year for like my whole life. Before that he did this show called American Bandstand and a bunch of different game shows. I watch the _Miss America_ contest every year, but the best years were when he hosted; guy was just so classy."

"Did his other programs end with people kissing as well?" Castiel asked, his eyes flickering briefly to a very sexualized commercial for salad dressing that Dean remembered Kevin and Sam talking about it being controversial for some stupid reason, Dean couldn't see anything wrong with it, before the curious blue-eyed gaze of the other man returned to Dean. "I have been wondering all year, trying to see if they did it on other shows, but they never have. It is unique to only this show."

"It's not the show, Cas," Dean sighed, scrubbing a hand tiredly through his hair and setting his half empty beer onto the coffee table, ignoring the coasters that Crowley always preached about them using. "It's the day, New Year's Eve. At midnight you're supposed to kiss someone, someone you care about to celebrate ringing in the New Year."

"But why?"

"I don't know, because you do." Dean said with a shrug, barking out a laugh when the other man's frown deepened even more and Castiel muttered something under his breath about the strange habits of humans. "You do it because...because you're happy, Cas. You kiss the person you love because you're happy that you made it through another year together and you're looking forward to spending more with them. For a couple it shows that you're going to face whatever happens in the next year together and if your year ends up being shitty, well at least you started and ended it with each other."

"You did not kiss anymore last year, Dean. And neither did I," Castiel complained crossing his arms over his chest with a pout.

The show was coming back from commercial and Ryan Seacrest was doing the build-up to the ball dropping, they had about two minutes left.

"Well, I didn't have a lot of options last year," Dean murmured, glancing over at Castiel who was still frowning, but his eyes had dropped to the couch cushions separating them and the angel didn't appear to be listening to him anymore. "Kind of in the same situation again this year."

He wasn't complaining, really. Dean didn't care who else he was with as long as he was with Cas, his night had gotten a million times better when he realized the angel hadn't gone out to the bar with their strange assortment of roommates. Neither one of them was going to get a kiss at midnight which sucked, but it sure beat the hell out of someone else besides him getting to kiss Cas. It was petty, but he had never claimed to not be petty.

"What if the person you love does not feel the same?" Castiel asked suddenly, his eyes shooting up to Dean's face as his expression changed from confusion to panic. "It would be wrong to kiss them if they did not want you to, right?"

"Well, yea," Dean agreed.

"But how else are you supposed to know?" the angel asked sounding slightly hysterical when Ryan Seacrest announced that it was one more minute until midnight. "If you never talk about it and the right time to tell them never comes up, how are you supposed to know they do not want you to kiss them? You could go a whole year or _years_ , Dean, sharing this profound bond with someone and they would never know, just because you did not kiss them."

"There are three hundred and sixty four other days in the year, Cas." Dean said, trying to keep the emptiness out of his voice when he thought of the angel being so in love with someone that he was freaking out over being stuck in the bunker with him on New Year's Eve instead being with them. "Just kiss them and if they don't slap you, you're probably good."

' _Alright ladies and gentlemen we are now going to live coverage of the ball dropping in Times Square,'_ Ryan Seacrest said, smile plastered onto his face. _'Twenty...nineteen...eighteen...'_

"You're going to miss it, Cas." Dean told the other man, pointing at the T.V. in a last ditch effort to try to get the angel into the spirit. The other man looked positively distraught, wringing his hands in his lap and biting his lip as his eyes darted back and forth between Den and the flickering screen.

' _Seven...six...Five! Four! Three! Two! One! Happy New Year!'_

The hunter smirked sadly at the couples kissing on the screen; he could fucking stab werewolves, face down angels and demons and old forgotten gods, stop the apocalypse over and over like it was nothing, but he couldn't kiss the person sitting right next to him. Bobby would be smacking him in the back of the head so hard right now and it was the thought of his uncle that sparked his courage enough for him to look over at Cas, maybe tell him, but he didn't think he was quite there yet.

As soon as he turned his head though he was met with the brute force collision of a pair of nervous lips pressed against his own, shaking hands bunching in the fabric on the front of his robe, and a solid chest bowing him over backwards slightly onto the arm of the couch before he righted himself. Dean's eyes closed instinctively and his own hands came up to grab Cas's biceps before he pushed them both off the couch completely and onto the floor. And god, did he ever kiss him back; tilting his head so that he could try to soften the kiss so that their teeth wouldn't keep clashing together painfully through their lips.

It was anxious and desperate and so fucking perfect that even though he couldn't hear them through the thick walls of the bunker, Dean could see fireworks going off behind his eyelids. He didn't even care why Cas was kissing him, because CAS WAS KISSING HIM. Even if it was for all the wrong reasons like he was lonely and just using Dean to have another 'human experience' or he was practicing for the person that he really wanted to kiss, Dean had been wanting this for so long that he was just going to take whatever he could get now even if it hurt like hell later.

"Oxygen, Cas." Dean gasped, ducking his head and breaking his lips away from the angel's who didn't have to breathe. "I need it, I need it to live."

He pressed his forehead into Castiel's neck, wanting to just see what it felt like to have this for just a second before it was all ripped away from him like everything good in his life always was, and tried to catch his breath back. Dean felt like his heart was going to pound out of his chest, a feeling that wasn't entirely unfamiliar since it always sped up just a little when he looked at Cas, but now it was like a heavy metal band was using the muscle as a double bass, driving the beat of his blood and making him lightheaded.

'Auld Lang Syne' was playing on the television and somewhere, Kevin was probably really drunk.

"So am I good?" the angel asked softly above him, nervously flattening the bunched up, wrinkled fabric of Dean's robe against the hunter's chest. "Are you going to slap me?"

Dean pulled back sharply, frowning at the other man who was studying his expression warily; Cas's lips were kiss swollen and there was a loose end of yarn unraveling from the collar of his sweater, resting in the hollow of the angel's throat and bobbing in time with his nervous swallows. "You mean...were you talking about me?"

"Dean, I have spent the last six years following you all over the country. Defying heaven and hell and quite a few laws of nature in order to be by your side, how could you not think that I was talking about you?"

"Because I'm a fucking mess," Dean offered with a self-deprecating smile. "I mean, did you see how much mistletoe I hung up at Christmas?"

"OH," Castiel said, shaking his head and laughing softly. "I thought that Crowley had hung it up to mess with me, he has been threatening to do something like that since we have known each other. You should have said something."

"You should have said something!" Dean exclaimed, pushing against the other man's chest teasingly with the palm of his hand before he changed his mind and hauled Cas back in, pulling him close for another kiss. "Fuck it, we're both morons."

Castiel nodded and smiled widely against Dean's lips, letting them be caught this time by the hunter who he had wanted to kiss for as long as he could remember. Let the other man take control of the exchange by nibbling on his bottom lip and swiping his tongue across the seam of his mouth until he opened it so Dean could deepen their kiss, pressing Castiel back down onto the couch with a murmured, "Happy New Year."

"Even if its shitty," the angel agreed, earning a chuckle from the hunter above him. His hunter.


End file.
